Lahore Quotes

“After everything is said and done, a memory remains a treacherous thing…How long does one cling on to the people they’ve lost? How long could I have remembered my grandfather? How long had it been since I forgotten him and my mind began harbouring other things?”
― Kanza Javed, Ashes, Wine and Dust

“We should have realized it sooner, at least my father should have, that there was no coming back. Not in September when the riots died down, not in October when the subcontinent still lay in shock, not even in November as he had hoped and promised us. Lahore was now lost forever”
― Aanchal Malhotra, Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory

“[Taken from a BBC documentary]

Tariq was born in Lahore, now in Pakistan, then part of British-ruled India, in 1943. A Catholic school education did nothing to shake his life-long atheism, which he shared with his communist parents.”
― Tariq Ali

“Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan, ancient capital of the Punjab, home to nearly as many people as New York, layered like a sedimentary plain with the accreted history of invaders from the Aryans to the Mongols to the British.”
― Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist

“There are all the hidden menaces of long journeys on the way.
But we shall go.
Treat it as exile or a new beginning.”
― Osama Siddique, Snuffing out the Moon

“Welcome to Lahore, ma’am!” îmi spuse încă o dată în timp ce coborâsem în mulțime. Oprisem în fața restaurantului, iar o altă mare de oameni, gânduri și emoții mă aștepta să încep o nouă aventură. Am comandat biryani și paratha iar în așteptarea lor îmi ascultam gândurile cum îmi vorbeau, printre zumzetele unor muște prietenoase ce își traficau firimiturile căzute printre mese. Un tablou în care toate nuanțele purtau căldură și comfort. Probabil că lecții interesante de viață musteau printre crăpăturile secundelor, într-o lume cu totul nouă pentru mine, în care am înțeles pentru prima oară că universalitatea cuprinde mult mai multe nuanțe în paleta-i, decât cele pe care le priveam dintr-o rutină molcomă în spațiul meu mioritic. Și da, un aha moment m-a făcut să înțeleg că oricât de greu și întortocheat poate părea drumul în viață, se vor ivi întotdeauna portițe pe bucățile de drum despletite între curgeri de mișcare. Și că legea nativului din noi strălucește uneori deasupra oricăror reguli impuse de societate; are nevoie doar să-i dăm voie să se exprime… în trafic… Mișcare într-o structură perfect construită.”
― Simona Prilogan, Ochi de Poveste

“Lahore was a different world in its own; the busy life, the rich history, the colourful culture, and the unfamiliar faces”
― Javaria Waseem, In the Shadows of Light at Night

“When I wake, it seems a little less hot than usual, so I’m worried I have a fever until light flashes behind the curtains and the sound of a detonation rolls in with a force that makes the windows rattle. As I step outside with a plastic bag over my cast, a stiff breeze pulls my hair away from my face, and I see the pregnant clouds of the monsoon hanging low over the city.
The rains have finally decided to come.
I sit down on the lawn, resting my back against the wall of the house, and light an aitch I’ve waited a long time to smoke. Suddenly the air is still and the trees are silent, and I can hear laughter from my neighbor’s servant quarters. A bicycle bell sounds in the street, reminding me of the green Sohrab I had as a child. Then the wind returns, bringing the smell of wet soil and a pair of orange parrots that swoop down to take shelter in the lower branches of the banyan tree, where they glow in the shadows.”
― Mohsin Hamid, Moth Smoke

“Lightning’s echo comes as thunder. And the city waits for thunder’s echo, for a wall of heat that burns Lahore with the energy of a thousand summers, a million partitions, a billion atomic souls split in half.”
― Mohsin Hamid, Moth Smoke

“Once a Lahori, always a Lahori”
― Rafia Shujaat, Desi Flavors

“ओ लगदी लाहौर दी आ
जिस हिसाब ना हँसदी आ
ओ लगदी पंजाब दी आ
जिस हिसाब ना’ तकदी आ

ओ लगदी लाहौर दी आ
जिस हिसाब ना’ हँसदी आ
कुड़ी डा पता करो
केहड़े पिंड दी आ
केहड़े शहर दी आ”
― Lahore Lyrics in Hindi

“If one had asked Manucci during his days as a street urchin, as he sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah, Manucci would probably have said that ACs were hot. The first time he saw one jutting out into the street from the wall of a shop in the old city, he walked up to the noisy box and was amazed at the blast of hot air it sent straight into his face. Why do people turn on hot air in the middle of summer? he often wondered.”
― Mohsin Hamid, Moth Smoke

“A raindrop strikes the lawn, sending up a tiny plume of dust. Others follow, a barrage of dusty explosions bursting all around me. The leaves of the banyan tree rebound from their impact. The parrots disappear from sight. In the distance, the clouds seem to reach down to touch the earth. And then a curtain of water falls quietly and shatters across the city with a terrifying roar, drenching me instantly. I hear the hot concrete of the driveway hissing, turning rain back into steam, and I smell the dead grass that lies under the dirt of the lawn.
I fill my mouth with water, gritty at first, then pure and clean, and roll into a ball with my face pressed against my knees, sucking on a hailstone, shivering as wet cloth sticks to my body. Heavy drops beat their beat on my back and I rock slowly, my thoughts silenced by the violence of the storm, gasping in the sudden, unexpected cold.”
― Mohsin Hamid, Moth Smoke

“The bathing boys abandoned their frolicking and gathered in a horde around the singing man. Nobody made a sound. Their heads swayed gently in tune. Even Malik sahib and the fruit seller looked enchanted. The mysterious contours of his voice in the mellow, orange twilight were like the sound of nature, the call of beauty. And the road water, though the filthiest in Lahore, mimicked the red blush of Heer's cheeks which, the player revealed, "were scented like a rare flower on a spring morning."
-- The Player”
― Sarim Baig, Saints and Charlatans

“کوئی وقت تھا کہ ہر موسم ایسے اپنی آمد کا اعلان کرتا تھا، جیسے کوئی پُرانی اور مہذب معاشرت کا علمبردار مسافر فصیل شہر کے باہری بلند دروازے کے سامنے کھڑا شسُتہ لہجے میں اندر آنے کی اجازت مانگے۔ فصیل شہر سے جب محافظ نیچے جھانکنیں تو انھیں ایک خوش پوشاک اور معتبر ہستی نظر آئے۔ جس کے انداز، لباس، اسلوب اور مختصر مگر نفیس زادِراہ سے اس کی ذات میں مضمر کئی صدیوں کی تمدنی اور اخلاقی رعنائی ٹپکتی ہو۔
کچھ اس طرح آتے تھے کبھی موسم میرے اس شہر میں۔”
― Osama Siddique, Ghuroob e Shehr Ka Waqt غروبِ شہر کا وقت

“The best investment you can make is in yourself—keep learning, keep growing. A short course in Lahore after intermediate can be the first step toward your”
― Anonymousus

“In this city, stories are the only form of land that the poor can own.”
― Maria Khalid, The River Beneath the Bazaar